Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Whiskey Wednesday: Microdistilleries to Watch

As I learned in compiling my Complete List of American Whiskey Distilleries, the world of craft distilleries is booming. In doing the research, I found a number of whiskey distilleries or planned distilleries that do not yet have anything on the market. I thought I would list these distilleries so we can follow their progress. The status of these operations varies from working distilleries that have whiskey maturing in barrels to projects that seem to be little more than a guy with passion and a website. In any case, the following distilleries are either producing or have plans (or dreams) to produce whiskey but don't have anything on the market yet.

Balcones Distillery, Waco, TX. This distillery is under construction with plans to make a single malt whiskey.

Dryfly Distilling, Spokane, Washington. This producer of gin and vodka is currently ageing their DryFly Single Malt Whiskey.

Garrison Brothers Distillery, Hye, TX. Garrison Brothers is currently ageing its Texas Bourbon, a wheater, which it hopes to release in 2011.

Nashoba Distillery, Boston, MA. This winery turned distillery is planning to release a five year old single malt in August 2009.

Penobscot Bay Distillery, Winterport, ME. This micro plans to open this year and aspires to produce Bourbon, rye, single malt and multi-grain whiskies. You can read about their start-up on Slashfood's Diary of a Distiller.

Pioneer Spirits, Chico, CA. This new Northern California distillery reports that they have a California corn whiskey "in production" as well as a light rum.

Roughstock Distillery, Bozeman, MT. This distillery is making Roughstock Montana Whiskey, a single malt which they claim will soon be coming to "a liquor store or watering hole near you."

Wyoming Whiskey, Kirby Wyoming. Wyoming Whiskey have plans to make "America's next great bourbon." It's not clear that they have built a distillery yet.

If you know of any others, please let me know, and if you are from one of these distilleries, I'd love to hear from you about your plans and progress.

6 comments:

Thanks for including us in your list of microdistilleries. Your information is correct. We currently have 276 barrels of what we believe is the finest bourbon ever made anywhere aging in our barns. It is aging nicely. We're very excited.

A limited quantity will definitely be ready for release in 2011. Feel free to contact me if you have any additional questions. You can also sign up for our semi-annual newsletter at www.garrisonbros.com.

Thanks for the mention of Wyoming Whiskey on your list of microdistilleries to watch. As an update, we began bourbon production on July 4th of this year and will fill 1000 barrels before taking a break. Our Grand Opening will be on October 10th for anyone who is interested. In the meantime, anyone who would like a tour can contact Steve or Donna Nally (previously of Makers Mark) at 307 864-2116. Enjoy the rest of your summer.